In the name of Allah, Christians can also appreciate Ramadan

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun07.19.2012

A Jordanian man looks at decorations for Ramadan in Amman, Jordan,Thursday, July 19, 2012. Religious authorities in Jordan declared that Friday will be the start of the holy month of Ramadan, a period devoted to dawn-to-dusk fasting, prayers and spiritual introspection. Ramadan begins around 11 days earlier each year. Its start is calculated based on the sighting of the new moon, which marks the beginning of the Muslim lunar month that varies between 29 or 30 days.

With the holy month of Ramadan beginning today, most of Canada’s 600,000 Muslims are expected to direct more of their energy toward contemplating Allah.

Despite conventional thinking that Allah is the name of the exclusive God of Muslims, many say Allah can be appreciated by all monotheists, by all people who believe in one ultimate sacred reality.

That’s the message Islamic scholar Bruce Lawrence delivered during a pre-Ramadan series of courses offered this month by Simon Fraser University through its Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Culture and the international Aga Khan University.

“I’m an Anglo-Mohammedan, a Christian who believes in the Koran,” said Lawrence, an acclaimed Islamic scholar from Duke University in North Carolina who, in addition to advising governments about Muslim issues, was profiled in The New Yorker magazine after translating the writings of Osama bin Laden.

During the annual 30 days of Ramadan, during daylight hours most healthy Muslims fast from food, fluids, sexual relations and other bodily enjoyments. The physical self-renunciation is meant to focus their minds on God, who in Arabic is known as Allah.

For decades, Lawrence, an Episcopalian (or Anglican), has gained insight from what the Koran says about Allah. Even though the holy book has difficult passages, Lawrence generally finds it “a very satisfying and calming book. I love its lyrical and bracing quality.”

The author of Who is Allah? and many other titles said in an interview he regrets that some people misunderstand the concept of Allah, falsely assuming Muslims believe Allah is an essentially different God than the one revered by Jews and Christians.

Lawrence’s non-doctrinaire view of Muslim attitudes and theology is reinforced by SFU Islamic specialist Derryl MacLean, who says “the name, Allah, is simply the name attached to the God of all humanity, and not simply the Muslim God.”

Indeed, even though Allah is the most common name the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims use for God, some Muslims use different terms for the ultimate reality, said MacLean, author of the new book, Cosmopolitanism in Muslim Contexts. “Persian Muslims use the Farsi word Khuda [also meaning God],” MacLean said, before adding, “And Arab Christians often use the word ‘Allah’ for their deity.”

To reinforce the Islamic teaching that Allah is the God of all people, one famous 17th-century Muslim mystic, Dara Shikoh, began one of his books with the phrase:

“In the name of the One God who has no name. No matter what name you use, He will respond.”

This broad-minded attitude appears to hold sway in many Metro Vancouver mosques, where non-Muslims are often welcomed to take part in services with some of the city’s roughly 80,000 Muslims, who hail from all over the world, especially Iran, Pakistan, India and Africa.

At Al-Salaam mosque on Canada Way in Burnaby, for instance, spokesman Imaad Ali (who attended evangelical Christian Trinity Western University in Langley) urged Christians and others to join with his fellow Muslims in daily rituals and prayers.

For his part, Lawrence emphasized that another effective way for both non-Muslims and Muslims to gain access to Allah, the universal divine, is through reflecting on Islam’s “99 names for God.”

The Islamic scholar especially values the first three of the 99 alternative names for Allah, since they refer to the importance of modelling God’s compassion, mercy and forgiveness.

Asked why he describes himself on his website as a “cosmopolitan advocate of Christian-Muslim synergy,” Lawrence said most great religious leaders — including Buddha and Jesus, who was Jewish — learned from a variety of traditions.

“Everyone who is deeply into religion,” he said, “often draws on more than one source.”

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